Alan Ruck is knocking it out of the park in HBO’s sleeper-to-sensation dark comedy Succession. If you aren’t watching, you have at least been badgered by anyone who is to “Watch it!” The show’s success has Alan Ruck making the couch rounds in the lead up for the show’s season 3 premiere this weekend. While the world fell in love with the perpetually whiney, hangdog and sick Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…
Ferris: “You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do. Now be a man! Take some Pepto Bismol and come over here!”
Ferris: “Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.”
…the film industry didn’t embrace him the same way.
While chatting with Marc Maron for his WTF podcast, Alan Ruck discussed his quirky character of Cameron in John Hughes’ 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.& “In those years where I couldn’t seem to scare up any work, I was like, ‘Oh, well. I guess [Ferris] was my shot’,” Ruck said.
“That movie came out in ’86, and then I stumbled around New York. In 1988, I did a pilot in Thailand about a photojournalist in Vietnam, and I really wanted it to go [ahead to series]. In a network way, it was like Succession. Things weren’t going great. So, the Bueller thing got to be a pain in my ass when people would bring it up during that period and I would go, ‘I’m done.'”
He described being “flat-ass broke” and working at a Sears warehouse in East Los Angeles for three to four months to make his car payments. He said he would try “to make myself invisible” hoping that no one would recognize him. It would be 8 years of bartending and small roles before he would be cast in the 1994 Keanu Reeves action classic Speed.& (Though we should note that he did have a fan-favorite role in the Western franchise sequel Young Guns II in 1990, where he played farmer Hendry William French, who reluctantly becomes a member of Billy the Kid’s gang). He followed that blockbuster with small roles in films and guest spots on TV. He went on to score a role in the hit Michael J. Fox sitcom Spin City which ran for six seasons. The show would reunite him with 80s icons Charlie Sheen, Heather Locklear and Barry Bostwick. The series would also launch Connie Britton’s career. He’s been a working actor ever since.
Ruck is currently killing it as the older half-brother Connor Roy on the Emmy-winning HBO Max Succession.& As I’ve badgered you earlier, you need to check out the twisted and hilarious Roy family. The ensemble cast includes Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, and Sarah Snook. The dark comedy revolves around the Roy family who are known for controlling the biggest media and entertainment company in the world. However, their world changes when their father steps down from the company. Here’s the season 3 trailer to get you hooked and starting from the beginning!
Succession‘s third season premieres this Sunday, October 17, on HBO.
Source: movieweb.com